Rush will be making their first U.S. television appearance in more than thirty years on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.”
The Canadian band Rush, which hasn’t performed on U.S. television in more than three decades, will play their classic “Tom Sawyer” on the Comedy Central show Wednesday (11:30 p.m. EST). The Geddy Lee-led trio, which is currently on tour, hasn’t played on U.S. television since 1975.
Rush is only the latest act to perform on “The Report,” which has steadily edged closer to “Ed Sullivan Show” territory. With increasingly frequent musical performances, “The Report” has grown a variety-show impulse, evident in other upcoming bookings. The rapper Nas will perform on July 23, Toby Keith will return for a second performance on July 28 and Crosby, Stills and Nash will play on July 30.
The Stephen Colbert-hosted comedy show was originally launched as a parody of conservative political punditry — and shows like “The O’Reilly Factor” do not make a habit of hosting music performances. But “The Report” circus has expanded into musical realms, often with its sonorous host joining in. John Legend, Neil Young, R.E.M., Tony Bennett, Peter Frampton, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, John Mellencamp, the Roots and Carole King have all performed on the show.
Cool. Here’s a video of Rush playing “Tom Sawyer,” albeit not on “The Colbert Report.”
The gang at Rolling Stone has come up with a list of the “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.” But who’s got time for that in the fast-page Internet age? Here’s their top 10 — the other 90 suck in comparison, right?
1. “Johnny B. Goode” Chuck Berry (1958)
“If you want to play rock & roll,” Joe Perry told Rolling Stone in 2004, “you have to start here.” Recorded 50 years ago, on January 6th, 1958, at the Chess Records studio in Chicago, Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” was the first great record about the joys and rewards of playing rock & roll guitar. It also has the single greatest rock & roll intro: a thrilling blast of high twang driven by Berry’s spearing notes, followed by a rhythm part that translates a boogie-woogie piano riff for the guitar. “He could play the guitar just like a-ringing a bell,” Berry sings in the first verse — a perfect description of his sound and the reverberations still running through every style of rock guitar, from the Beatles and the Stones on down. “It was beautiful, effortless, and his timing was perfection,” Keith Richards has said of Berry’s playing. “He is rhythm man supreme.” Berry wrote often about rock & roll and why it’s good for you — “Roll Over Beethoven” in 1956, “Rock and Roll Music” in ‘57 — but never better than in “Johnny B. Goode,” a true story about how playing music on a guitar can change your life forever.
2. “Purple Haze” The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967)
The riff is pure blues — the same kind of guitar figure Hendrix played nightly back on the R&B-club grind, as a sideman for Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. But in “Purple Haze,” Hendrix’s second British single and the first track on the U.S. version of his debut album, he declared himself a free man — “‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky” — and unveiled a new guitar language charged with spiritual hunger and the poetry possible in electricity and studio technology. “Guitar — you can play it or transcend it,” said Neil Young when he inducted Hendrix into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. “Jimi showed me that. I heard it, felt it and wanted to do it.” Hendrix wrote “Purple Haze” backstage at a London nightclub in December 1966 and recorded basic tracks with his band, the Experience, two weeks later. But the galactic travel came in overdubs recorded on February 3rd, 1967: Hendrix’s solos, swimming in echo and sparkling with harmonics, were put through an octave-boosting effect and played back at twice the speed. In less than three minutes, Hendrix opened a new age of expression on his instrument.
3. “Crossroads” Cream (1968)
Eric Clapton once described Cream’s music as “blues ancient and modern.” This track is what he meant. He was not yet 23 when he played this high-velocity version of the Robert Johnson song at San Francisco’s Winterland on March 10th, 1968. Everything in Clapton’s solos is grounded in the blues vocabulary but pointed to the future. “When Clapton soloed, he wrote wonderful symphonies from classic blues licks in that fantastic tone,” Little Steven Van Zandt told Rolling Stone in 2004. “You could sing his solos like songs in themselves.”
4. “You Really Got Me” The Kinks (1964)
It was, at first, “a jazz-type tune,” said Kinks singer Ray Davies, and the two-chord figure driving it was a sax line. “That’s what I liked at the time.” Then his brother Dave played it on guitar through an amp speaker he had poked with needles and shredded with a razor blade. (”It was a Gillette single-sided blade,” said Dave.) Dave’s solo — a tangle of zigzags and viciously bent notes — heralded the birth of Sixties garage and punk-rock guitar in one fell swoop. “I said I’d never write another song like it,” said Ray. “And I haven’t.”
5. “Brown Sugar” The Rolling Stones (1971)
“Satisfaction” may be the Rolling Stones’ most recognizable riff, but this Sticky Fingers hit — based on a gutbucket guitar part devised by Mick Jagger — is the band’s raunchy guitar pinnacle. Keith Richards’ secret weapon: He’s playing a guitar that’s missing its lowest string.
6. “Eruption” Van Halen (1978)
Eddie Van Halen’s 102-second mission statement was a piece he invented onstage: a solo showcase for his mastery of tone and technique, notably the rush of notes he produced with his fretboard tapping. An army of teens would try to duplicate it, emerging years later in every metal band of the Eighties.
7. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” The Beatles (1968)
This is a tale of two guitar giants at an empathic peak: George Harrison, who wrote this song on acoustic guitar in India, and Eric Clapton, who amplifies Harrison’s vocal dismay with a waterfall of blues fills. It’s the finest examaple of his jagged, late-Sixties tone.
8. “Stairway to Heaven” Led Zeppelin (1971)
“Stairway,” Jimmy Page told RS in 1975, “crystallized the essence of the band.” It’s a masterpiece of dramatic ascension: Page’s acoustic picking rising into chiming chords, which introduce the solo, a brilliant succession of phrases that steadily move toward rock & roll ecstasy.
9. “Statesboro Blues” The Allman Brothers Band (1971)
In 1968, Gregg Allman went to visit his older brother, Duane, on his 22nd birthday. Duane was sick in bed, so Gregg brought along a bottle of Coricidin pills for his fever and the debut album by guitarist Taj Mahal as a gift. “About two hours after I left, my phone rang,” Gregg remembers. ” ‘Baby brother, baby brother, get over here now!’ ” When Gregg got there, Duane had poured the pills out of the bottle, washed off the label and was using it as a slide to play “Statesboro Blues,” the old Blind Willie McTell song that Taj Mahal covered. Duane had never played slide before, says Gregg, but “he just picked it up and started burnin’. He was a natural.”
The song quickly became a part of the Allman Brothers Band’s repertoire, and Duane’s slide guitar became crucial to their sound. “Statesboro Blues” was the opening track on their legendary 1971 live double album, At Fillmore East, and ever since, the moaning and squealing opening licks have given fans chills at live shows. “It wasn’t something that Duane would play the same way every night,” says current Allmans guitarist Warren Haynes, one of many guitarists who have filled Duane’s shoes since he died in late 1971. “But in all of our heads, that’s the way it goes.”
There’s one thing the current band doesn’t try to replicate from the Fillmore East performance: At the end of Duane’s sublime “Statesboro” solo, the guitarist hits an off-key note that Gregg calls the “note from hell.” “He left it in because he knew I hated it,” says Gregg, claiming that the mistake only adds to the song’s legend. “It was live. It was something that happened.” EVAN SERPICK
10. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” Nirvana (1991)
Most of “Teen Spirit” came easy — Nirvana nailed it in three takes — but that crucial Kurt Cobain guitar intro required an overdub (”That pissed him off,” said producer Butch Vig). It was worth the effort: That riff, along with the band’s loud-quiet-loud dynamics, defined Nineties rock.
It’s a pretty lame list, if you ask me. “Johnny B. Goode” and “Purple Haze” are certainly top 10 material but most of the others aren’t. A lot of them aren’t event particularly good guitar songs.
Certainly, almost any AC/DC song you’ve ever heard of is better than “Stairway to Heaven” as a guitar jam. Indeed, so are quite a few Zeppelin songs, notably “Rock and Roll.” And where’s Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Freebird”? That’s gotta be in the top 10.
Source: “The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time” [Rolling Stone]
Maybe Depends should sponsor the next Black Eyed Peas tour. The day after a San Diego concert, the ‘Net was packed with pics of Fergie with a huge wet spot on her crotch.
After her publicist claimed the stain was just “sweat,” Fergie confessed she’d had a few drinks and “didn’t think to go to the bathroom” before the show.
“We were jumping around … it was all very rock ‘n’ roll. And my bladder just started … you know.”
2. Out of Sync
Milli Vanilli were busted on a 1989 tour when the tape jammed as they mouthed ‘Girl You Know It’s True.’ The public later learned that the duo hadn’t sung its vocals in the studio, either. More recently, Ashlee Simpson (left) was exposed on ‘SNL’ when the wrong recording of her vocals was triggered. Milli Vanilli responded by running offstage. Simpson fled, but tried to stomp out her embarrassment with a hoedown.
15. Stuck in a Moment You Literally Can’t Get Out Of
It was a travesty of a mockery of a sham when U2, the world’s most earnest band, went ironic for its mega-sized 1997 Popmart tour. Metaphorically speaking, it doesn’t get much more precious than the incident in Oslo when the band’s 40-foot lemon-shaped pod malfunctioned, trapping the band inside. All they could do was laugh, the Edge later admitted.
14. His Name Was Mud
At Woodstock ‘94, those incorrigible boys in Green Day took the fabled festival’s legendary history of muddy conditions to the punk-rock extreme, starting an epic mud-fight with the audience. With the stage filled with muck-covered fans, bassist Mike Dirnt was mistaken for a trespasser by a security guard, who leveled the musician, knocking out several teeth.
13. A Lot of Hot Air
Blow-up props, from Pink Floyd’s pigs to Limp Bizkit’s penis, are sure sources of amusement. In 1977, Fleetwood Mac celebrated their status as the world’s biggest band by incorporating a 70-foot penguin into their act. The problem with this particular inflatable was that it was always flaccid. “It would never fully inflate,” recalled Lindsey Buckingham. “This thing was limping and floundering at the back of the stage.”
12. Moon Shot
From shards of Pete Townshend’s guitars to black eyes from Roger Daltrey’s windmilling microphones, the Who have always been one of rock’s most accident-prone bands. But Keith Moon’s piece de resistance was the explosion he rigged during a 1967 television appearance. More powerful than planned, it propelled the drum kit and Daltrey airborne, and may have even triggered Townshend’s hearing troubles.
11. What’s My Line?
Singers forget lyrics all the time, but preferably not in front of the President. During a Kennedy Center tribute to Dolly Parton, Jessica Simpson (left) abruptly stopped in the middle ‘9 to 5.’ “Dolly, that made me so nervous,” she blurted before running offstage. Some 45 years earlier, Ella Fitzgerald blanked on ‘Mack the Knife’: “Oh, what’s the next chorus/To this song now?,” she sang. Ella laughed it off, and it won her a Grammy.
10. What a Dump!
Shock rocker Alice Cooper “retired” the huge snake used in his show for decades after an incident in Los Angeles during which the snake pooped, and pooped some more. “I never expected there to be eight piles the size of a Doberman pinscher,” Cooper later told Rolling Stone. “My whole stage costume was covered, and it smelled so bad I was gagging.” Even Johnny Rotten, who was in the audience, was impressed.
9. Thin White Stick
David Bowie has dodged his share of roses and beer cans in concert, but he surely never anticipated what would force him to leave the stage 20 minutes into a 2004 Oslo show. The Thin White Duke was hit with the thin white stick from a lollipop, hurled by a fan, which lodged inside his left eyelid. It was the same eye that he injured in a schoolboy fight with a classmate, a trauma that left the eye permanently dilated.
8. Butterflies Are Free?
The Rolling Stones’ massive 1969 concert in London’s Hyde Park became an impromptu tribute to their fallen mate Brian Jones, who was discovered at the bottom of his swimming pool two days before the gig. Mick Jagger, dressed in white, read from Shelley’s elegiac ‘Adonais’ before releasing thousands of butterflies — most of which were already dead
7. Everybody Nose
The spread for the Band’s 1976 farewell concert was a who’s who of guests (Dylan, Clapton, Neil Diamond), a feast for performers and audience alike, and, by all accounts, a schmorgasbord of illicit substances. During Neil Young’s appearance, the oblivious singer had a gob of cocaine clearly lodged in a nostril. Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese later had to edit the residue out of their concert film.
6. Sorry, Wrong Genre
Some rock-rap crossovers are better left unexplored. Sean “Diddy” Combs tried to pull a page from the grunge playbook when he attempted a stage dive at a tony nightclub in Ibiza, Spain, in 2005. Instead of catching the rapper and hip-hop impresario, fans moved away, and Diddy slammed to the floor. Gamely, he hobbled back onstage.
5. Meat and Greet
Invariably identified as the nutcase who bit the head off a bat, Ozzy Osbourne was on the receiving end of a somewhat less fondly remembered stunt on his ‘Diary of a Madman’ tour. A giant catapult designed to look like a hand was set up to fling raw calves’ livers and pig intestines into the audience in a kind of ritual baptism-by-butcher’s-offal. At one gig, the slaughter fell far short of its destination, landing on … Ozzy’s head.
4. A Little Birdie Told Me
Onstage in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 2004, Cyndi Lauper threw her head back to hit a high note — and took a direct hit from a defecating bird flying overhead. The singer wiped her mouth on her sleeve and soldiered on. Later, she denied reports that the poop had landed in her mouth: “It went on my lower lip. I could not taste it … I actually considered it a good-luck sign.”
3. Basshead
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain may have had a self-destructive streak a mile wide, but it was bandmate Krist Novoselic who put himself in harm’s way during the 1992 taping of the MTV VMAs. Near the end of the song ‘Lithium,’ Novoselic tossed his bass in the air. The guitar hit him squarely on his head, and the dazed musician stumbled offstage as his mates trashed their own instruments and taunted their nemesis Axl Rose.
Like “South Park Republicans,” the concept of “conservative rock songs” is rather counterintuitive. Nonethless, the editors of the venerable National Review of compiled a list of the top 50.
The New York Times lists all 50 and provides NR’s reasoning, some of which is rather strained. And a few of the songs are by no means “rock,” even by the expansive new definition that includes Aretha Franklin.
1. Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who.
The conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries; this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naive idealism once and for all. “There’s nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by—the—bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.” The instantly recognizable synthesizer intro, Pete Townshend’s ringing guitar, Keith Moon’s pounding drums, and Roger Daltrey’s wailing vocals make this one of the most explosive rock anthems ever recorded — the best number by a big band, and a classic for conservatives.
I’m not sure cynicism and an acknowlegement that Leftist causes eventually become conservative staples is a conservative viewpoint–although it’s generally correct. Surely, this isn’t the best example of a conservative rock song?
2. “Taxman,” by The Beatles.
A George Harrison masterpiece with a famous guitar riff (which was actually played by Paul McCartney): “If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street / If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat / If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” The song closes with a humorous jab at death taxes: “Now my advice for those who die / Declare the pennies on your eyes.”
More populist than conservative. But yes.
3. “Sympathy for the Devil,” by The Rolling Stones.
Don’t be misled by the title; this song is “The Screwtape Letters” of rock. The devil is a tempter who leans hard on moral relativism — he will try to make you think that “every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints.” What’s more, he is the sinister inspiration for the cruelties of Bolshevism: “I stuck around St. Petersburg / When I saw it was a time for a change / Killed the czar and his ministers / Anastasia screamed in vain.”
Not sure Jagger and company were going for a conservative theme. Douglas Cruickshank provides an excellent literary take on it for Salon.
4. “Sweet Home Alabama,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
A tribute to the region of America that liberals love to loathe, taking a shot at Neil Young’s Canadian arrogance along the way: “A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”
Definitely a Southern anthem but not sure there’s much “conservative” about it, aside from vague pro-Wallace sympathies and the line “Now Watergate does not bother me/Does your conscience bother you?”
7. “Revolution,” by The Beatles.
“You say you want a revolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world . . . Don’t you know you can count me out?” What’s more, Communism isn’t even cool: “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.” (Someone tell the Che Guevara crowd.)
This is a classic case of liberal values become conservative over time. The Lads were pretty liberal even by the standards of 1960s era twentysomethings. They were just also anti-violent and anti-Communist. So, incidentally, was George McGovern.
16. “Get Over It,” by The Eagles.
Against the culture of grievance: “The big, bad world doesn’t owe you a thing.” There’s also this nice line: “I’d like to find your inner child and kick its little ass.”
This one deserved to be much higher on the list. Again, though, Henley and company are hardly conservatives.
20. “Rock the Casbah,” by The Clash.
After 9/11, American radio stations were urged not to play this 1982 song, one of the biggest hits by a seminal punk band, because it was seen as too provocative. Meanwhile, British Forces Broadcasting Service (the radio station for British troops serving in Iraq) has said that this is one of its most requested tunes.
An inspired choice, although a case of a song being seized upon people with radically different sympathies than the songwriter.
31. “Small Town,” by John Mellencamp.
A Burkean rocker: “No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from / I cannot forget the people who love me.”
Mellencamp will cringe if he finds out conservatives are glomming onto his music.
35. “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Written as an anti—Vietnam War song, this tune nevertheless is pessimistic about activism and takes a dim view of both Communism and liberalism: “Five—year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains . . .”
Again, cynicism is not conservatism.
50. “Stand By Your Man,” by Tammy Wynette.
Hillary trashed it — isn’t that enough? If you’re worried that Wynette’s original is too country, then check out the cover version by Motörhead.
